The annual Medical Library Association (MLA) conference took place this year in Seattle from May 18 until May 23. This year’s theme was “Growing Opportunities: Changing our Game” and attendees went into extra innings as the program was jammed packed with sessions to suit all types of players.

The conference opened with Steven Johnson best-selling author of seven books on the intersection of science, technology, and personal experience. His talk regarding where good ideas come from and innovative thinking set the tone for the rest of the meeting (at least for me).  As a side note, Mr. Johnson has also given several TED talks with the same theme. So for those who didn’t attend the meeting, you still have an opportunity to check out his past performances.

As the days flew by, we attended sessions covering evidence-based resources, supporting translational research, innovative ways to improve library operations, tech trends, new ways to deliver instructions, and NLM’s update on past and future activities, to name a few. We also networked with fellow colleagues in similar roles from different institutions, visited vendors and information providers’ exhibits to learn about new features as well as new products that might benefit our user community, and attended poster sessions where you could see the accomplishments of many team-oriented information professionals.

This year we also contributed to one of the poster sessions –
LibGuides: Developing Custom Research Solutions for Our User Community showcased our efforts in customizing web portals for many of our user groups and departments. Antonio DeRosa and Sarah Jewell did a wonderful job sharing our lessons learned and the types of LibGuides we developed.

So while we experienced several very long days (and nights!), we definitely brought back many new ideas that we hope to implement in the near future. Conferences such as MLA help us to benchmark among our colleagues and ensure that we continue to deliver quality information services and products to our users.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services